Diving on Fiji Time

If you have ever lived, visited or thought about visiting a tropical island destination then you have probably heard the term “Island time.” But have you actually stopped to embrace and enjoy what island time really is and what it represents?

For the past 8 years I have been living on one island or another and no island really represents island time better than Fiji. Fijians believe that you never know what tomorrow will bring so why rush today. To me this belief is spot on. Too many people rush thought life without stopping to enjoy what it really means to live. How life should be viewed and enjoyed and not just a race to see who can finish first.

Thousands of westerners travel hours and thousands of miles away every year to visit an island some place around the world, to relax and recharge their batteries on holiday. Few though are able to truly capture the “Fiji time” spirit. Many pack as many activities into a trip as possible to not miss a minute of excitement. Rushing from here to there to see all they can spot in one week, rather than stop and watch life happen around them.

Scuba divers are part of the many people who fall into this trap of trying to spot and check off as many adventures as possible rather than slow down and really see what's happening underwater. Turtle, check. Shark, check. Nemo, check. Another turtle, already found one, move on. Last week Vicky wrote about slowing the dive down and focusing on the small things, the nudibranchs, shrimps etc. This week my goal is to slow things down even more, to stop and smell the roses... underwater.

This past week I had the pleasure of teaching Jason his Open Water course. During his course Jason found turtles, sharks, anemone fish, lion fish, nudibranchs, countless other reef fish and found some really cool stuff. But the highlight of the course for him and me was his final two dives where we slowed everything waaaaaaaayyy dooowwwwwwwnnnnnn. In fact we slowed things so far down on the last dive we spent 89 minutes underwater and only covered half of the dive site. Yes, a dive site that normally takes 45 minutes to swim though we spent 89 minutes and only saw half of it. That's how slow we were going. Why did it takes us this long? Because we stopped at every coral bommy, looked in every nook and cranny for anything and everything. We stopped and enjoyed what was happening around us, watching a pair of jaw fish dig out their burrow for ten minutes. One fish on lookout guarding the other digging, then how they would switch roles. We watched as they chased off other fish trying to come in for a look, how one fish excavated a rock bigger than him (or her). Then a few feet later we observed the mutualistic symbiotic relationship between two species, a goby and a blind shrimp. The goby provides protection of a lookout while the shrimp digs the hole. Both animals now have a home, the goby does less work and the shrimp has a pair of eyes to watch for predators.

These types of relationships happen all around us underwater, but we have to stop and slow down to spot them, slow down to Fiji dive time. Spending 89 minutes underwater on a dive definitely helps. The more time we spend underwater the more likely we are to see something interesting or new. Actually this is one of the reasons Vicky and I decided to come to Fiji for diving. We had both previously worked at places that restricted divers dive times and we wanted to get back to what the scuba lifestyle is about, enjoying the underwater world for it's beauty and wonder, not just to make a buck. Too many dive company owners lose sight of why they got into the business and essentially lose site of what island time truly represents, life. They get caught up in what others are trying to escape coming to the islands for their holiday. I mean come on. Most certified divers are diving with dive computers so telling customers they can't make multilevel dives is ridiculous. By learning how to really use your dive computer or multilevel dive planner you will learn how to stay underwater longer and avoid your decompression obligations. Of course once you have all this additional bottom time only you can slow down and make sure you turn that extra time into quality bottom time to experience what's really happening underwater. Then come visit us and see what scuba diving on the Coral Coast Fiji is really about, quality.

All Photos By Chris Liles
www.liquidmotionmedia.com

Catch Up!!!

Looking at the date of my last blog, it's been a long time – Hurricane Tomas came and went, and here on Viti Levu we were not too badly affected, strong winds and rough seas being about the worst of it. On the outer islands it was a different story, luckily there weren't many lives lost, but crops were devastated, and when you survive on subsistence farming it's a huge blow. There will also have been damage to the reefs around some of the outer islands, though the impact will be hard to determine due to the remoteness of the islands. We are nearing the end of cyclone season, the end of May is the official finish, so fingers crossed we will have a peaceful tropical winter.

During the last two months I spent another three weeks at Mango Bay as we waved good bye to Nick and waited for Damos, our new instructor to start. It was a busy few weeks, with eight people completing their open water courses and two more their advanced courses. Robbie stayed on to complete his divemaster course and is already nearing the end of his internship. You guys all know who you are – plenty of fun had and friendships made. I hope everyone enjoyed their travels and their diving!

Fast forward to the last couple of weeks, and the diving has been interesting! A huge rainstorm caused all the rivers to flood, the silty run off streams being clearly visible in the dark blue sea. I dived The Edge with Christine on her first dive in the ocean, and the visibility was an awesome 20+ metres to begin with. As we swam inside the reef, the visibility in the top 10m of water became appalling, you could see about one metre. 10m and below the visibility remained 20m+ - it was awesome to see such a phenomenon, caused by the silt being suspended in the fresh river water floating on top of the salt water.

I got to see a lizard fish on the hunt just at the mooring of Stingray. I had just descended with Liam and was watching the cleaner wrasse clean his leg. I hadn't yet pointed this out to Liam as it was the first minute of his first dive, and he may not have been so impressed at being cleaned. Suddenly there was a commotion beside his leg, caused by a lizard fish launching itself up from the bottom to catch the cleaner wrasse, which I then watched it enjoy thoroughly for breakfast!

Mere and I still haven't dived Bordello together, though I did have to use and abuse her for a rescue course. Or more precisely, Paul did.... As always, the rescue course was a lot of fun, even though Paul did answer back... Large swells and big tides made for some interesting surface currents requiring lots of hard work on Paul's part, and much dunking of poor Mere. She had to have three days off work afterwards!! Well done Paul!

Three more open water courses have been completed at Hideaway in the last week, keeping me pretty busy. Huge swells made for some really interesting conditions, making fin pivoting and hovering a real challenge – luckily nothing says you have to stay in exactly the same place! So well done to Tim, Lorna and Nathan, you rose to the challenge and dealt with the conditions incredibly well.

I finally managed a day out the water today, though was tempted to join Esala and his certified divers for a pleasure dive as conditions looked so inviting this morning. I opted for dry land and was most disappointed to hear tales of two manta rays joining them on Bordello! It is rare to see mantas off the Coral Coast, but there are many feeding and cleaning stations throughout the Fiji islands, and the mantas have to get there somehow. These are some of my favourite underwater creatures and always make my dive when I see them. They are gentle giants, and can measure well over two metres from wing tip to wing tip. They feed on plankton and it is a wonder to me that such large animals can survive on such small ones.

And finally a HUGE CONGRATULATIONS to Jo and Phil, two of my discover scuba diving students. On the safety stop at Nemos, Phil produced a sign from his pocket asking Jo to marry him! It was so exciting, and she did say yes, well I think that's what the gigantic clash of regulators and all the bubbles was about! Phil had been planning it for weeks, made even more impressive by the fact that Jo didn't really want to try diving in the sea... Best wishes to you both from all the team at Diveaway.

Take care, blogging again soon – promise!

Claire

Instructors notes

Wednesday 11th February

After a week down Mango Bay, all in the name of work, it is good to be back at Rydges Hideaway with Mere to keep me in line. Mango has some awesome dive sites (well the three I saw anyway!), but Stingray at Hideaway has quickly become one of my favourites as the life is so abundant and diverse. Lucky really, as I get to see a whole lot of it!

Mango Bay was a lot of fun, with Anthony completing his Scuba Diver course and, I suspect, beginning a serious addiction to bubbles, and John completing his Open Water course and off to meet the fishes in Hawaii – well done guys, you made my first dives at Mango! It was also great to find plenty of Europeans to chat to over a happy hour draught Fiji Bitter at Beachouse.

Back at Hideaway things are fairly quiet, with the boat going out most days, but not too full, less people to laugh at surprise entries. The lion fish at Stingray are still out hunting through the sea grass bed every day, and the white tips certainly know I am back, and can’t be found anywhere... The cleaner wrasse have decided that I am in good need of a clean, and can regularly be found chowing on my legs.

I had my first encounter with a seriously territorial titan triggerfish yesterday. I was showing Rachel the moray eels hanging out in the rocks, only to look up and see one pelting towards us with teeth bared. A quick swoosh with my fin just managed to deflect it, but not for long, and she was back for more. The titans have a conical shaped territory extending up from their egg sites, so you are never too sure when you are no longer trespassing. I am thinking of doing The Edge tomorrow with the DSDs, just in case... Far, far scarier than the sharks, and I understand why Alex calls them evil bastard fish!

Mere has promised to take me to Bordello soon, not a site I have done yet. She has promised me a huge and friendly Napoleon Wrasse, so I am really excited. These beautiful fish are under threat of extinction as a steak of their flesh fetches a high price in Chinese restaurants. They can live to be 100, and don’t start breeding until they are 20 years old, so it’s all about sensible fishing practices, as they are commonly caught using cyanide poisoning, fatal for all of the reef creatures within the vicinity. They live in groups, with one dominant male and a harem of females. If the male leaves the harem, and there are no other real men to take over, the top female changes sex and rules the pack – neat trick, but I think I’ll leave it to the fish!

So, fingers crossed for light rains and flat seas all in the name of good visibility! The Edge and Bordello, here we come...

Video from Coral Coast

Ok not our best example of video from our sites, but thought I would play with positng a video here...